


HIGH & DRY

by sidnihoudini



Category: Good Charlotte
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-03-04
Updated: 2014-03-08
Packaged: 2018-01-15 03:00:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 11,870
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1288696
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sidnihoudini/pseuds/sidnihoudini
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ultimately, the band had also been how he'd met Joel.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Los Angeles to Maryland

_Los Angeles  
Now_

"Why didn't it work out?" The interviewer asks him, her voice curious and soft as she adjusts her camera focus.

Black and white film clicks over the shutter inside and taps out a quiet, rhythmic sound that lulls them both into a haze of nostalgia for days not so recently passed. The sound reminds Benji of his mother's dinner parties, and running up and down the Venice Beach pier.

At the question Benji wrinkles his brow and exhales, mind flooding. He scratches at the bone beneath his eyebrow with the back of his thumb, a faded tattooed star, two fingers bowed carefully around his lit cigarette.

"I don't talk about that anymore," He finally answers, moving to sit back further in his chair, body shifting so hard that the thick plastic squeaks and almost seems to buckle underneath him.

She zooms in on his face suddenly, purposefully, and the automatic focus is unsteady but she nods despite that, watching as the tense line of his lips shake.

Even to the most casual of viewers, it is obvious that she is videotaping a ruined man.

~

_Maryland  
Then_

He usually gets home from work around eight o'clock - although if he's running late to the bus stop and misses his first choice because of it, it's usually really more like nine.

Doesn't matter, though, cause on most nights dinner has already been made by the time he gets home. It waits for him on the kitchen counter, a damp sheet of saran wrap wrapped around it, its plastic wrinkled and heavy with condensation. He's not the kind of guy to eat in the kitchen, though, so usually he'll carry it back into the living room instead, setting it down on the coffee table before he grabs his guitar case out from behind the sofa.

For Benji, dinner these days is always served best over music.

Sure, he usually gets made fun of, being that every lyric sheet he owns has some kind of sauce splattered across it, the vague imprint of a noodle stricken through lines and notes and stalling pauses. Joel always makes a face and tells him that it's gross, but then he usually makes a bad joke right afterwards so Benji isn't so convinced he thinks it's that bad a habit.

Tonight, 10:30 rolls around to Benji's empty dinner plate, feet kicked up on the coffee table. 

He tilts his head back against the couch and gazes up at the ceiling as his thumb bounces over the guitar strings, some kind of non-sensical tune. Historically it's around this time that the neighbour below starts banging on her ceiling with the handle of a broom. She loves getting Benji to lay off of the endless tinkering, but he's just not that convinced she knows what she's missing quite yet.

Usually, Benji cooperates. People don't call him a nice guy for nothing.

Sinking a bit deeper into the couch, Benji looks ahead at the television. The not-so-late Late Night programming comes on around this time, and he celebrates it by letting his fingers tap along the curve of his guitar's body in a rhythm that matches each commercial's jingle.

Joel, for the most part, gets home around eleven. Tonight Benji gets the Meow Mix theme song stuck in his head, so his grand entrance is accompanied by Benji's original lyrical stylings. Mostly, "I like Joely, he likes ballet, Meow Mix, Meow Mix, blah blah, cat food."

"It's funnier every time," Joel says, standing in the front foyer with a crooked smile on his face. He's still looking at Benji even though his hands are fumbling with the zipper of his overstuffed backpack and the sticker covered skateboard he carried up the stairs. 

Benji's actually about to say something clever when Joel fumbles the skateboard and lets it drop, loudly, against the floor. As an afterthought to the loud bang and roll of Joel's skateboard, there are two short warning knocks from the lady downstairs.

"Shit," Joel swears, making a face as he bends down to lead the board against the wall.

Cackling, Benji pushes his guitar to the side and crawls out of their very loved, very sunken in the middle couch. As he approaches Joel, Joel drops his book bag to the floor with a quiet thunk, and smiles again when Benji leans in to kiss him hello.

"Salutations," Benji says in a low, butchy voice. It gets a snort out of Joel which is what Benji was going for, so Benji leans into kiss him again, catching the corner of his mouth before they both pull away.

Before Benji can put a step between them, Joel snags his arm and says, "Guess what."

"Hmm, you..." Benji trails off and grabs Joel's hand instead, pressing a quick kiss to his knuckles before he walks away, back over to the coffee table. He stoops down to pick his dinner plate up of the coffee table, still making vaguely indecisive noises before he raises an eyebrow and asks, "You finally figured out how to get past the second level of that game on your phone?"

Rolling his eyes, Joel bends back down to rummage through his bag.

"I can't do that until I add two more friends, so no," He calls through to Benji, who is now in the kitchen carefully placing his plate in the sink for Joel to clean up later. As an after thought, he crumples up the old saran wrap ball one handed.

Benji reaches above the sink to crack the window open a couple of inches as he listens to Joel unzipping and rezipping and unclicking and reclicking binder rings in the front hall. It's a symphony of noises, and Benji can't help but find the pattern in them, making a face at himself in the reflection of the window pane as he does so.

The sound of one of their neighbours drunkenly ranting on their patio in the next unit over inspires Benji to rummage around in the fridge for a beer, so he does, working around the fact that the ecosystem inside of it is mainly composed of slightly too old to eat leftovers, and a single bag of recently dethawed edamame.

"Check it out. There's a showcase coming up at 9:30 Club," Joel says, appearing in the kitchen door frame with a bright yellow flyer in one hand. Benji secures a bottle of Corona and a can of Miller High Life and stands up, looking at Joel curiously over the edge of the fridge door. Joel is standing between the ridiculous 70s wooden built in, and the fake houseplant one of their friends gave as a housewarming gift, and it sparks a bubble of warmth in Benji's soul.

He looks at Joel curiously, especially when he realizes that Joel looks pumped up. This is about as excited as Benji saw him when they'd stumbled across that box of N64 games at a garage sale last summer.

"9:30 Club always has showcases," Benji says, carefully. "We went to one a month ago."

Joel rolls his eyes and shuts the fridge door, forcing Benji out from standing inside of it.

"I know that, that's not it," He says, accepting the beer can Benji gives him out of duress. "The important part here is that I charmed the booking agent and got you a fifteen minute set this Friday night."

An explosion of excitement confetti pops in Benji's chest as he's grinning, his eyebrows shooting all the way up into his brightly coloured hairline as he almost drops his beer.

"Okay please don't be joking," He says, bravely, trying to face himself for the worst.

9:30 Club, Benji will later explain in an interview with Rolling Stone, was the CBGB's of DC. Iggy Pop had played there, MXPX pretty much called the place their own, and legend had it that Tim Armstrong had accidentally knocked someone out in the men's bathroom.

To put it lightly, 9:30 was what a struggling musician's dreams were made of.

"That's not it, Benj," Joel says, totally grinning now, his mouth lopsided in that strange way that it sometimes went. Benji lived for that smile. "Paul found out that there's going to be some guy from Epic lurking there this weekend."

Benji's beer almost hits Joel in the side of the head as he launches forward, wrapping Joel up in a massive hug, shaking his own head and grinning widely into Joel's shoulder. His lip ring pushes against his gum as he holds on.

"I don't know what I would do without you Joely," He whispers into the fabric of Joel's t-shirt. His voice is low and, dare he say it, riddled with emotion. "What would I do without you?"

Laughing, Joel presses a toothy grin against the skin of Benji's neck, and then pulls the upper half of his torso away, so he can at least look Benji in the face.

"Maybe you would end up singing cat food jingles until you die," Joel teases, bringing his arm around to crack his can of beer behind Benji's head. Benji laughs at him, startled and amazed, watching Joel's face as Joel adds, "Congratulations."

Kissing Joel's nose, Benji whispers, "Thank you."

~

At 17, Benji had been part of a pseudo post-punk movement that had largely entailed looping audio feedback and wearing heavy leather boots. To this day he refers to it as a big part of his childhood, even though his poor mom insisted on pretending that his entire senior year had never happened in the first place.

In high school, he had been the lead singer of a three piece band that had been named Lefteous. 

It, much like its name, made very little sense and inevitably gave them the reputation of being a band full of left handed members - to the members of faculty who knew about them, at least. It had mainly been he and Paul writing the music back then, anyway, Maryland's very own Kid N Play, where they'd hole up in Paul's basement with a bunch of old cassette tapes and a plastic tape recorder.

Benji had the voice, and Paul had the musical talent. Paul also ended up getting a girl the grade below them pregnant just before senior prom. It had inhibited their song writing at first, but in the end her mother made her move away to Delaware or something, so it was really only four or five months of Paul being grounded, and then they were on the party circuit again.

Ultimately, the band had also been how he'd met Joel. At the time Joel had, strangely enough, been captain of the high school cheerleading team. It had been a strange bet to make, but it had all been so perfectly American that Benji just couldn't help getting himself involved.

They'd actually met at one of the house parties he and Paul had played at (as the ever memorable Lefteous), Joel had been playing beer pong in his school lettered sweater and ill-fitting khakis. And sure, Benji had been drunk on house beer and fireball, but that moment had changed his life forever. Seeing Joel for the first time was like having a sheet of plate glass broken over his head.

"One day I'll write a song about you," Was the first thing Benji had ever said to him, ping pong ball in hand as he stepped up to challenge the as of then reigning master.

Joel, drunk and pink in the face, had laughed and made a face, leaning against the beer pong table as he'd looked to the side at his friends to see their reaction. One of them had been passing out, slowly nodding off against the arm of the couch, but the girl to her right had laughed and smiled at Benji, making some kind of horrific 'aw' noise that cut right through the teenage soundtrack filtering down from upstairs.

"You're insane," Joel laughed, as Benji threw his ping pong ball and they both watched as it sailed across the table, bouncing against one of the cups before rolling to the floor.

Benji, making a face, had shrugged his shoulders and smiled.

~

"Have fun," Benji grins, lips curved and closed as he holds the plastic bag out over the counter by its handles.

The customer nods awkwardly and grabs at the bag, trying to wrap it in on itself as he steps away from the counter and tucks the purchased DVD into the front pocket of his winter jacket instead. Benji widens his smile, waving, and sits back down on the crappy wooden stool his boss let him keep behind the counter.

Sure, he never really figured he'd end up working as a cashier for a porno place, but as a child he never thought he'd like broccoli, either, and he loved to cook that shit up now. The road changed, sometimes, and Benji's just happy to keep up with it.

"You finding everything alright?" He calls out, leaning against the sticker covered counter top with one elbow. He balances all of his weight on the front two legs of the rickety stool, and watches as a nervous looking exchange student nods hurriedly and disappears around a rack of animated shit.

Benji understood a lot of fetishes and weird stuff like that - but the animated discs they imported from well, Japan mainly... those he just never got. He'd even tried to watch one, once, just for the thrill of the job, but when the milk cartons and the rope gags had come out, he'd been pretty much over it.

He had never brought that DVD back, actually. Maybe he could give it to Paul for Christmas.

"Hey," Joel greets, coming through the front door.

Grinning, Benji pops up off of his stool and leans over the counter as Joel walks up to it, pursing his lips as he waits for a kiss. Joel makes a face at the anatomically correct cardboard cut out his boss put up right beside where the cash register is, and begrudgingly leans in for a quick press of his lips against Benji's, eye still open and on the cardboard thin pornstar beside them.

"Don't look at other women when you kiss me," Benji jokes, settling back down on his stool. "Why are you visiting me? Did you bring me a present or something?"

Joel shakes his head and glances around the store, letting his gaze trail over the area where it sounds like the exchange student from earlier is still rummaging around through the DVD bargain bins.

"Just myself," Joel shrugs, leaning against the counter with one elbow. At the disappointed expression on Benji's face, Joel rolls his eyes and then adds, "I work in an hour but I wanted to see you before I caught my bus."

Fully grinning now, Benji reaches under the counter and pulls out the remnants of the sushi his boss brought him for lunch. In-between berating Benji for always sitting behind the counter and not putting any of the new releases they'd receieved out, Dean had eaten lunch standing up and then taken all of the receipts and cash for the week prior.

"Hungry? I have leftovers," Benji says, cracking open the little plastic container.

Joel wrinkles his nose and shakes his head, eyeing the way Benji's soaked everything with soy sauce and clearly not noticed that the fish looks a little gray.

"I made chicken wraps, I left a bunch of stuff in the fridge for your dinner," Joel says, reaching out to close the plastic lid on the smelly sushi when Benji doesn't seem to notice the green color spreading out from underneath the collar of his hoodie. "Thanks though."

Making a face, Benji shrugs and tucks the food back under the counter. He adds, "I don't actually like sushi that much. Thanks for making me chicken wraps."

"You're welcome," Joel laughs, standing up on his tip-toes to get enough distance over the counter top that he can give Benji another kiss. He pulls Benji's head towards him, awkwardly balancing there for a second, before he drops back down onto his heels and smiles. "I think that guy is jerking off back there, see you at home?"

Benji grimaces and sullenly drops back onto all four feet of his stool. The tell tale fleshy sounding rhthym begins to get louder, projecting from behind the rack of DVDs nearest them.

"Always babe," He sighs, picking up his sushi again as he stands up. "Can you throw this away for me on your way out?"

Smiling, Joel takes the sushi and waves over his shoulder as he starts out of the store, making a face and hurrying a little faster through the front doorway when he hears Benji, pissed off and yelling at the customer to stop jerking off.

~

Benji eats the chicken wraps for dinner, and sits on the couch with his guitar.

"I am stuck on Joely cause Joely's stuck on me," He sings, foot tapping against the edge of the coffee table.

Glancing over at the clock, Benji checks the time. 10:45.


	2. Teenage Dream

It's Friday night, and Joel is ten minutes behind schedule.

He's actually already supposed to be at his bus stop, but right now he's running down the mostly empty main corridor of the community centre instead, the rubber soles of his running shoes squeaking against the marble linoleum floor. 

"Please don't get here early, please don't get here early," Joel chants under his breath, slamming into the heavy looking metal and glass entrance doors with one hand. He pushes through the door with his skateboard, already a little out of breath as he starts jogging down the wet concrete steps, head up and eyes trained on the empty bus stop across the street.

It's dark outside, deep blue skies and it's starting to look more like Spring, now. 

Joel likes this time of year, he loves it even, when everything is fresh and damp and somehow brand new. Most people broke their bad habits in January, but Joel waits until March, until a new season comes. Because what was so inspiring about melting snow banks turning to slush, anyways? The browning Christmas trees tossed into dumpsters and on the sides of the street had to have been some kind of bad omen, he was sure of it.

He's standing at the edge of the sidewalk outside of the community centre thinking about this and waiting for a break in traffic when his cellphone starts to vibrate.

"Hey," He answers, even though most of his attention is still concentrated on the cars whipping past him. The good news is that he can't see the lit front of a public bus steamrolling towards him - the bad news is that doesn't mean that the one he wants hasn't come and gone. "I got out of work late, I'm just catching my bus now."

It's loud on Benji's end of the call, deep bass throbbing into Joel's ear even though he's half a city away.

"I just got here," Benji yells into the phone, as Joel starts jogging across the street. As he reaches the opposite curb and turns around, he lets out a sigh of relief when he sees his bus in the far distance, its lights leading him to paradise among all of the other headlights shining towards him, glaring. "I'm already freaking out a little bit so I'm gonna get a beer."

Joel nods at nobody in particular, and drops his skateboard to the floor so he can dig around in his wallet for the bus pass he was very happy to get at a discount through work.

"Benj, you'll blow everyone away," He says, saying 'Benj' like someone else might say 'babe' or 'darling.' When he finds his bus pass jammed in behind his debit card, he wiggles it out, and takes his phone back from where he'd been awkwardly balancing it between his shoulder and his chin. "I believe in you. Right?"

The bus is stalled at a red light about a block away; Joel wiggles back and forth on his feet, anxious to just get to the bar already. He leans forward to pick his skateboard up.

"Right," Benji finally answers. Even if he isn't sure of himself, he knows Joel believes in him. "I'll see you soon?"

Joel smiles, and takes a step back from the curb as the bus pulls up to it.

"You can't keep me away," He says, and he means it.

~

Joel changes out of his runners and into his sneakers on the bus.

For some reason he still keeps all of his class stuff in a knapsack he's had since high school. It's Dickies brand and covered in black and white checkers, even though at some point he tried to colour a few of the white boxes in, and now all that remains in those squares is faded felt pen that's been washed out in the laundry.

The first time he and Benji got someone to boot for them, they'd stashed the resulting six pack of beer in this knapsack and hurried off through the football field, laughing and grabbing at one another in the bright lights. Benji had been particularly proud of himself, Joel remembers with a smile.

Leaning his head against the rumbling bus window, Joel closes his eyes and lets himself sink into the memory.

The way Benji used to dye the front part of his hair hot pink, and how he had thought his plaid bondage pants made him look tough. When he sees that Benji in his mind's eye, his heart just bursts over and over. To remember him as a little teenaged brat and then see him how he is today, still so concentrated on his guitar and his meticulous collection of limited edition vinyl releases. It makes him spin inside, sometimes, until there is no up or down and the only direction he sees is Benji.

The in-bus announcement system jolts him away from the memory, and painstakingly pronounces Georgia Avenue Northwest, which is Joel's cue to stand up.

Opening his eyes, Joel grabs his knapsack and his skateboard and makes sure his wallet is still in his back pocket before he slides out of his blue vinyl covered seat and starts making his way towards the back exit doors. There are a few other people that must be going to 9:30, too: Joel half smiles at the nervous looking girl standing beside him, waiting to get off at the next stop. She has a guitar case slung over one shoulder, and she can't stop biting her nails.

She glances at him when he smiles at her, but quickly looks away.

"Thank you!" Joel yells, looking past her when the bus pulls up to the stop and the doors pop open. Hardly anyone ever says thank you to bus drivers, which he doesn't really get. You say it to the person who gives you your coffee, and you'd say it if someone held a door open for you, so why not say it to the guy who's dropping your ass off all over town?

The bus driver largely ignores him, but Joel's alright with that. 

He drops his skateboard outside the bus and jumps onto it, starting down the sidewalk, gently weaving in and out of the other groups on the concrete. There's a group of girls that are all dressed nicely and clearly going out for dinner, and then there's a family that looks middle class and like they aren't from around here. Joel smiles at them, too.

9:30 Club is a five minute board trip away, and Joel finds Paul having a cigarette outside by himself when he rolls up, stopping a few feet away to kick the back of his board up and into his hand.

"Hey buddy," He calls, jogging over to where Paul is exhaling smoke and checking the text messages on his phone.

Paul glances up, realizes it's Joel, and then offers a half smile, throwing his cigarette butt to the ground.

"How's it going? Benji's pretty nervous, huh?" He asks, patting Joel on the shoulder as they both start towards the front door of the bar.

Nodding, Joel reaches back for his wallet, knowing the bouncer is going to ID him. He gets IDed everywhere. He had to show the guy at GameStop his ID the other day when he went to buy a video game that was rated M+. It's total crap.

"He's super nervous," Joel says, handing the bartender his ID. He rolls his eyes at Paul while the bouncer flips it over once, twice, holds it up to Joel's face and then finally nods, handing it back. Paul shows the bouncer the stamp on the inside of his wrist, and slips in behind Joel. Joel says over his shoulder, "He practiced until like, four o'clock this morning. I'm pretty sure the lady downstairs is gonna get us kicked out."

Paul snickers and points Joel in the direction of the table they're all gathering at.

"That bitch is an old hag anyway," Paul says, once Joel has spotted Benji in the crowd. He leans into the back of Joel's head so Joel can hear him over the bass driven song currently playing and asks, "Did you work today?"

Nodding, Joel slides between two tables, and glances back at Paul as he says, "Two classes. Kindergarteners before lunch and pre-cheer afterwards."

"I don't know how you do that shit, man," Paul replies, shaking his head. "The idea of trying to teach a bunch of children how to dance seems like it would just be like herding cats in tutus and hair bands."

Joel laughs and shrugs, "That's why you work in a factory now, man."

"Definitely," Paul nods, as they reach the table.

There are a ton of people here, actually - way more than Joel had been expecting. Especially at their table, some of the guys who have come out to show support Joel hasn't even seen in years. Benji is sitting with his back turned towards him, most of his attention angled at the stage where there's a sign that reads INDEPENDENT ARTIST SHOWCASE 9PM TO 11PM.

"Hey," Joel greets, coming up from behind to sneak a kiss against Benji's cheek.

Startling a little, Benji turns his head to the side and smiles when he sees Joel's face there. Joel leans in again and presses a quick, soft kiss against the bridge of his nose, and then wraps an arm around his shoulders from behind, squeezing.

"Do I look nervous?" Benji asks, sounding nervous.

Joel smiles, shaking his head as he hugs Benji a little tighter. Truth is, Benji looks really nervous. Nobody else might notice the little gives, but Joel does. The way Benji can't stop smiling, can't stop his attention from flicking between the stage and the table top and his beer label and Joel's arm. If Joel had arrived ten minutes earlier, he's also sure he would have heard at least a few bad jokes by now.

"This is what you're supposed to do, Benj," Joel says, looking him in the eye. Benji swallows, and looks back at him, his eyes clear and green even in the low light. "Don't ever forget that. Not now, and not when you're up there."

Nodding, Benji licks his lips and swallows again before managing another smile that doesn't betray him as much, this time.

Joel smiles back.

~

Benji plays four songs total, and Joel is almost sure he holds his breath the entire time.

There are two original songs that Joel has heard before, and two covers - Nada Surf and Katy Perry, accordingly. For whatever reason playing Teenage Dream last brings the house down, and Joel laughs, a hand over his mouth as he leans over the table and watches everyone's reactions: girls cheering and singing along, guys nodding along like they secretly know the words, too.

It's Benji's moment in the sun and Joel is caught up in watching him shine. His fifteen minutes go by in a flash, and maybe it's because he didn't include any spoken poetry or maybe it's just because he sang a pop song, but a lot of people clap - more people clap for Benji than they did any of the acts before him. Joel, still laughing, gets up onto his stool and sticks both pinky fingers in his mouth to whistle sharply.

All of the attention seems like it's caught Benji off-guard and he stands on stage looking sheepish, holding his guitar across his chest like a plate of armour as he bows a little, stunned. Joel claps his hands and laughs again when Benji's bow comes across looking like more of a curtsey before he waves and finally jumps off of the edge of the stage, making his way back towards the table.

Joel climbs back down from his stool and shakes his head, catching Paul's eye across the table.

"That boy is gonna be t-r-o-u-b-l-e," Paul says, laughing and sipping at his whiskey like he doesn't have a five year old daughter as a direct result of being trouble himself.

Smiling, Joel lets out the breath he'd been holding from the moment Benji got up on stage, and shakes his head, reaching for his own beer. It's damp and covered in so much condensation that its label is beginning to wilt away from the glass.

"Hey, round of shots, huh?" One of Benji's high school friends yells towards the bar as Benji walks up to the table, pink in the cheeks and still smiling widely.

Joel grins and stands up out of his seat, setting his beer back on the table.

"That was so good, Benj. So good," He says, hugging him around the neck, even though their bodies are separated by Benji's guitar.

Still breathing heavy, Benji presses a kiss to the side of Joel's face, and reaches up to take the guitar strap off from over his head. Everyone around them is joining in with choruses of 'yeah dude' and 'great cover, man,' and then a row of shots is being dispersed around the table and Joel is reaching for his beer again so he can use it as a chaser.

"Seriously, I'm so stoked everyone came tonight," Benji announces, holding up his shot of JD to make a toast, a smile on his face as he addresses the friends around him. "Having my friends support me makes me a little teary eyed, I gotta say."

Someone from the end of the table yells, "Fag!" so Benji stops talking and they all laugh before throwing their shots back.

As the liquor burns at Joel's throat, Joel can't help but smile through the pinch, and laugh as he slams the empty shot glass back down against the sticky bar table.

This is it, he thinks to himself. This is the night that starts it all.

~

When they get home that night, Benji is a strange mixture of adrenaline and exhaustion.

"Do you want more food?" Joel asks, as they take their shoes off in the front hallway. Everyone had eaten burgers and bar food at 9:30, but that had been a few hours ago, and with all of the additional liquor they'd consumed, Joel figured an extra bag of potato chips couldn't hurt.

Looking a little dizzy, Benji shakes his head and carefully sets his guitar case down on the floor.

"Water. And Tylenol too, probably," He says, unbuttoning his jacket.

Joel nods and disappears into the kitchen, opening the cupboard over the sink to grab the bottle of Tylenol as he lets the sink run. Sometimes the waters a little brown until it gets going. Nothing to worry about, the landlord said, just a little rust. Joel worries about a little rust.

"I'm bringing chips just in case," Joel yells, announcing his decision as he snags the bag of chips from on top of the fridge, and then doubles back with a glass for Benji's water. It's Benji's favourite mug, actually, plastic and see-through and made in the shape of a skull. It's more like a goblet, actually, now that Joel thinks about it.

From what sounds like the bedroom, Benji yells back an agreeable, "Yes!"

Joel definitely still has Teenage Dream stuck in his head as he turns the tap off and makes his way back towards the bedroom, juggling the pills, glass of water, and bag of chips as he hits each light with his elbow. In the bedroom, Benji has already lost his pants and shirt and is mostly in bed, even though his guitar is back and resting in his lap.

"You think that guy from the record label was there tonight?" Benji asks, eyebrows raising as Joel sets the water down on his side of the bed and then drops the pills beside it.

Shrugging, Joel takes a step back and pops the chip bag open with one hand as he starts to undo the buckle on his belt with the other.

"Paul said he was, right?" He asks, pulling a potato chip out of the bag as he wiggles out of his jeans and lets them drop to the floor on Benji's side of the bed. He usually goes to bed with his shirt on, even though he also usually wakes up without it. "Paul knows more about that stuff than I do."

Benji frowns and coasts his hand down over the strings. He finally says, "I guess."

"What's with the encore performance, anyway?" Joel asks, climbing up into his side of the bed. The differences in their sides of the bed were obvious: Joel was the blanket fiend, and Benji preferred to sleep at an upright angle with about a million pillows crammed under his head. Joel has no idea why Benji is the way he is, but he figures it probably leads back to his mother. Most weird things like that do.

Strumming the guitar, Benji frowns and then shrugs. He finally says, "I was writing a new song."

"Oh yeah?" Joel settles into the mattress and eats another chip. "Will you play it?"

A grin cracks across Benji's face despite his quiet mood and he blushes a little, shifting, momentarily unable to look Joel in the eye.

"I guess. It's about you, though, so you can't laugh," He says, cutting himself off to open his mouth when Joel comes at him with a potato chip. He'll probably appreciate the additional carbs in the morning when he's laying on the couch and generally regretting his life choices.

Joel smiles and digs around for another chip. He says, "I never laugh."

"Alright," Benji says, eyeing Joel as though looking at him will get him to crack and admit that halfway through Benji's new song he's planning to die laughing and take Benji down with him. "I wrote it in the shower this morning kind of."

Nodding, Joel leans back against his normal amount of pillows, and pops another potato chip in his mouth.

"Go for it," He says quietly, eyes drifting from Benji's face to look at his fingers instead.

Benji nods and then strums his guitar once more, before sliding into a soft, quiet tune. It sounds almost melancholy, already, resigned in it's sweet and simple rhythm.

"You own me, there's nothing you can do. You own me," Benji sings, voice low and rough from singing and yelling at his friends in the bar. Joel's stomach dips, warm, his brain suddenly alive with the warm tone of Benji's voice. Benji smiles, bashfully kind of, and adds, "Lucky you."

It's short and simple and about as sweet as Benji gets, and it makes Joel smile.

"I love you, and I can't wait for the world to love you, too," Joel whispers, meaning it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The lyrics at the end of this chapter are real, but I'm not going to share what song it is until closer to the end of the story as it pertains to the plot a bit.


	3. Daydreaming

Joel's on his skateboard, loping around him in wide, lazy circles as they make their way down the sidewalk. This has actually been their preferred method of transportation for years - since high school, at least, when Joel wore school letters and Benji wore the proverbial leather jacket. A real life Grease, except with less malt milkshakes and way more underaged sex.

It's sunny for a mid-March morning, and Benji squints against the horizon as he sips at his coffee and listens to the sound of Joel's skateboard wheels rolling against concrete.

"You wanna go sit on the rocks at the park?" Joel asks, curving around him again, sneakers bright red against the dark grip of his board. He's holding his coffee with both hands even though he refuses to drink anything while in motion, and Benji has to smile when he notices the loose threads of his gloves against the bright white cardboard of his coffee cup.

Shrugging a shoulder, Benji follows along as Joel takes off in a straight line, his head bowed low as he navigates the empty city street.

It's a typical Sunday morning spent wandering around, and Benji wouldn't have it any other way.

~

Benji has decided that one of Dean's worst work habits is directly related to his penchant for singing.

Sure, maybe in another life he could have been some kind of musician, but in this one he's not - as evidenced by the way he retains about as many correct lyrics as a soccer mom trying to get through a top forty song in her van on the way to the dentist.

This morning it's Alanis Morissete. As a rule Benji doesn't really know much about her, but he does know that she wrote this song about Uncle Joey from Full House. He also knows that Dean-o clearly knows none of the words as he tries to sing along to the radio.

"Bringing down the house, as usual," Benji greets, sliding behind him on his way to the staff room.

Dean looks up from where he had been digging around in a drawer, and says, "You know it. Hey! How did your thing go on Friday night? Joel invited me but I already had plans."

"I don't know, good I guess?" Benji shrugs, kind of making a face despite himself. He thinks he remembers it being good. But the more he tries to remember what actually happened, the more his brain just supplements memories that he knows aren't true - like the daydream he had where Scarlett Johansson had come up from the crowd to sing a duet of Relator with him.

In reality, he had just sung an acoustic version of a Katy Perry song by himself.

"Good you guess!?" Dean starts, eyebrows shooting up into his hairline as he closes the drawer and follows Benji's trail into the staff break room.

Benji makes it through the door first, and gives a little wave to Billy, who's sitting at the rickety outdoor patio furniture kitchen table eating a to-go bowl of oatmeal.

"I dunno man, it's like the story that happened to someone else, now," Benji shrugs, opening the fridge to put his plastic bag of Diet Coke and cheese strings inside. He stands up, and scratches at the back of his neck a little. "It was pretty surreal."

Grinning, now, Dean leans against the kitchenette counter, and crosses his arms over his chest. He's pretty ripped for a guy that watches porno and goes on the Internet all day.

"No kidding," He says, looking proud of Benji as Benji shuffles around, putting on a pot of coffee since he's still got fifteen minutes before the store opens and his shift starts. "I'm proud of you man, it takes balls to get up on stage. I don't think I could do it."

Billy stands up from the kitchen table and gathers all of his assorted breakfast items.

"I had to take part in a school play in the fifth grade," He says, licking the last few oats off of the back of his spoon - Benji knows he only does it so he doesn't have to wash it between now and tomorrow's breakfast. "I totally puked all over the stage."

Laughing, Benji shakes his head and reaches for a coffee mug.

"Gross, man," He says, wrinkling his nose.

~

There are a lot of things that Benji expects to happen when he gets home.

Mostly, he expects that Joel will still be at work - which he is, as evidenced by the dark living room and the missing pair of sneakers in the front hallway. He expects that Joel will have left him dinner in the fridge - which he did, there's a bowl of macaroni and cheese sitting right there for him on the second shelf.

He expects to work a bit more on the song he started writing in bed after the showcase on Friday, and he expects to partake in his nightly dose of crappy television. He expects he'll end up writing a Joel centric parody of some popular commercial jingle in-between late night talk show segments, and, finally, he expects that around 11 o'clock the front door will crack open and Joel will be home.

What he doesn't expect is for a message on the answering machine to throw the entirety of his usual weekday routine off track.

~

Benji has never run so fast in his life.

All he can hear is the rhythm of his shoes hitting concrete, and the sound of his breath as each step forces the air out of his lungs. It's sharp and cold in the night, and Benji's face feels numb but his insides are exploding, a series of firecrackers igniting from the back of his throat down to the bottom of his stomach.

He isn't thinking normally as he takes the concrete steps two at a time, almost tripping over the top stair as he misses it and launches his body towards the entrance doors instead.

It's bright and white in the lobby of the community centre, and Benji gulps the warmer air, the taste of chlorine that drifts in from the swimming pool he remembers taking lessons in as a kid. At this time of night there really aren't that many people left working - Benji glances at the one bored teenager surfing the internet on the check-in computer as he runs past her.

Joel works upstairs in the dance studio, which is the only remaining part of the centre that hasn't been redone since the eighties. It's still full of strange wood panelling and drop ceilings, everything slightly warped from the dampness that drifts up from the pool and sauna downstairs.

Without thinking about it, Benji opens the door of the studio and runs inside, his brain only catching up to his body when a dozen pre-teen girls drop their feet back down to the floor and look at him strangely, their mouths drawn down in a series of small, pink frowns.

"Benji, what?" Joel asks, eyebrows jumping up into his hairline as he stops the music and starts over towards the door, feet bare against the sticky looking wooden floor.

Benji opens his mouth but no words come out.

"Excuse me, mister, what is your problem?" One of the girls asks, her head cocked to the side, one hand on her hip. She's got way too much attitude for someone with ginger colored hair, Benji thinks.

Licking his lips, Benji takes a deep breath, and tries again.

"Paul was right," He says, as Joel comes to stand in front of him, confused. "Someone from Epic was at the showcase on Friday night."

Joel's mouth drops open as he realizes what Benji might be saying. Glancing over his shoulder, he realizes that they have an audience of a bunch of teenage girls, and clears his throat, reaching for Benji's hand as he nods towards the floor to ceiling mirrors.

"Barre 'til I get back. Turn outs and legs and toes, go," Joel tells them, using his super serious community centre ballet teacher voice.

As they all grumble and turn towards the mirror, Joel grabs Benji's other hand and hustles them back out the door, making sure it closes behind them before he really starts freaking out.

"This guy left me a message on the answering machine," Benji says, eyebrows crawling up into his hairline as his voice gets higher and faster. "He said he was A&R for Epic, and he wants to talk to me before he leaves Maryland. He gave me a phone number to call him on."

Joel shakes Benji's hands and asks, "Did you call him?"

"I ran here!" Benji blurts, letting go of Joel's hands to step away, fingers carding through his hair as he paces back and forth in the small amount of space between the end of the stairwell and the dance studio door. "I can't remember if I locked the front door. Oh my god, I'm going to pass out."

Snapping back into reality, Joel watches as Benji drops into a crouch, bouncing against the heels of his feet as he rests his head in his hands. Joel hurries over to him and kneels down beside him, one arm over the tight line of his shoulders as he kisses the side of Benji's head.

"I'm so proud of you, Benji," He says softly, quietly. He can feel Benji's heart beating through the back of his t-shirt.

Benji turns his head to the side and smiles, this slow motion grin that might as well be dripping with honey for how sweet it is. Joel can't help but smile back as he leans in again and kisses Benji's mouth, this time, the arm across his back sliding up to tighten around his shoulders.

"Wait out here for me, okay?" Joel asks, rubbing his back as he stands back up and nods across the short hallway to the two orange colored plastic chairs pressed up against the wood paneled wall. "I'll be done in twenty minutes."

Nodding, Benji wanders over to the chairs still in a daze, and drops down into the creaky bucket seat.

~

He makes Joel listen to the message that night, just to make sure he hadn't been dreaming.

They listen to it three more times after that, and, the next morning, Benji heads downtown before work to meet Chris - the A&R guy - at a coffee shop. They laugh and talk about old records like the Descendants and Black Flag over their cappuccinos, and Chris says he's buying so Benji orders something really fancy, a drink with caramel and layers and a million other things he would never buy for himself.

Chris tells Benji he sees something in him: something magical.

Not knowing what to say about himself, Benji laughs and blushes and tries not to stare down into his cup of fancy coffee too hard. They spend almost forty minutes sitting in the coffee shop until Chris says he has to go, and for one slow motion second, Benji sees his future slipping away, the daydreams he'd had since listening to Chris' voicemail message last night vanishing in thin air.

In reality, his dreams go nowhere but straight out in front of him. Chris gives him a business card and tells him to email a digital copy of his demo - he wants to let his boss listen to it before he brings Benji to LA to record something new. It isn't a record deal, not yet, but he wants to put money into Benji's work, wants to tweak and twist and pull until he has something marketable, something even more magical.

Benji nods and smiles and takes the business card, promising to send the demo files over soon.

When Chris smiles back, shakes his hand and heads out the door, Benji falls backwards into his chair, and immediately reaches for his cellphone to call Joel.

~

"So did you tell Dean? Do you have to quit now?" Joel asks, climbing onto the couch beside Benji with a bowl full of cereal and a beer. "Was he mad?"

Shrugging, Benji frowns and looks at Joel kind of cluelessly. He says, "I haven't told him yet. He asked me how the showcase went and I said it was good, but that's it."

"He'll be happy for you," Joel says, matter of factly, as he moves a soup spoon full of cereal towards his mouth. It's Lucky Charms - Benji's absolute favorite - which is a shame, because Joel refused to eat it with anything other than almond milk.

In Benji's opinion, mixing anything with almond milk is just a waste of good food.

"I'm not going to quit yet," Benji says, reaching up to pinch a four leaf clover marshmallow out of Joel's bowl. Joel frowns and tries to fend Benji's hand off with his spoon. "He said he wanted to show his boss first. What if he doesn't like it?"

Joel shrugs and munches on his cereal, holding the beer can against his own thigh so he can crack it open one-handed. After swallowing his cereal, he takes two sips, and then sets it on the table pushed up against the back of the couch.

"Everybody liked it," He finally says after a second, swallowing against the fizz the beer leaves in his throat. Benji rolls his eyes at him, and leans his head against the back of the couch cushions. "Hey, I'm being serious."

Frowning, Benji says, "I am too. I just don't want to get ahead of myself. If they let me go to California to record, I'll just ask Dean for a week off or something. And then... you know, we'll see after that if we need to."

"What happened to hardcore positivity Benji?" Joel asks, letting his spoon clank against the edge of his glass bowl as he reaches across, arm leaning against the couch cushions, to run a hand through the hair on the side of Benji's head. "I am what I am, and all that crap."

Joel's cliff notes version of Benji's positive thinking gets a genuine smile, and Benji laughs, rolling his face into Joel's hand as he groans.

"I'm just freaked out. This is a big deal, and I don't... I don't know, you know?" He finally asks, watching as Joel takes his hand back so he can resume eating his cereal. "We do so well, here, and all of this... this big music stuff, it'll change that."

Rolling his eyes, Joel swallows and asks, "You want to work as a porn jockey forever?"

"No," Benji says, shaking his head. "I just don't want to stab you to death before killing myself with a heroin overdose in Hotel Chelsea."

Joel starts coughing and laughing at the same time, choking on brightly colored marshmallows as he leans forward and shuts his eyes, trying to swallow before he spits his cereal onto the floor. Benji watches him, amused, and reaches for the cereal bowl. He isn't into the almond milk but he'll definitely pick all the marshmallows out.

"That's Sid and Nancy, Benj," Joel manages after a few seconds of hitting himself in the chest and staring at the ceiling as he coughs.

Shrugging, Benji eats another soggy rainbow.

Joel was a dancer, he didn't get music. And in the music industry, someone always died.


	4. Palm Trees and Pink Paint

They're hanging out the living room window beside one another, their bare elbows braced against the window sill as they lean out into the night. The sill is full of chipped off-white paint, dried wax, and a collection of banana stickers curated by the previous tenant. And Benji wouldn't change a piece of it for all of the money in the world.

"This is it," Joel smiles at him, glancing sideways. His eyes sparkle in the dark of the night, the street lamps lit below them throwing up a glow so golden and beautiful it sends Benji's system into shock. Joel's smile is crooked as they look at one another, and just like Benji remembers it one, two, three, four years ago.

Benji inhales deeply, and feels his stomach somersault as he nods.

"Guess so," He says, voice soft. He looks at the city in the distance - his city, the one he grew up in, the one that he's sure doesn't look a thing like Los Angeles even though he's never really left it. Looking back over at Joel, he sighs and leans over, letting his temple rest against the curve of Joel's shoulder. "You ready?"

Grinning, Joel nods 'yes' and reaches into his jacket pocket. He pulls out a lighter and a birthday sparkler – it makes Benji laugh because he remembers seeing the half used packet tangled in the junk drawer the other day when he was looking for a pen.

"Congratulations, Benj," Joel whispers, flicking the BIC to light the sparkler.

Laughing, Benji rolls his head against Joel's shoulder, and lets his eyes drift closed as he listens to the rhythm of Joel's breathing, feels the muscles in Joel's shoulder shift underneath his cheek as Joel waves the sparkler back and forth.

"Man. What am I gonna do without you for two weeks?" Benji asks, sitting up properly. He rests his elbow against the sill, and he watches Joel grin as he moves his arm around, carving their initials out into the empty spring air.

The sparkler dies out, and leaves a fat glowing ember behind.

"If you ever miss me in Los Angeles," Joel says, a slow smile creeping across his face as he holds the still glowing sparkler out in front of them like a thin, metal lighthouse. Benji looks at it, too. "Just look for the green light."

Laughing, Benji brings his hand up to his ear, sticking out his thumb and pinky finger to make a pretend telephone. He creases his brow and whispers, voice soft and mouth desperately close to the curve of Joel's ear, "Daisy, it's Gatsby. Daisy, please pick up the phone."

A moment passes between them, one laced with golden string that is both familiar and brand new. Benji feels it thread through his stomach, weaving through his guts and up his rib cage into his heart. The way that Joel looks at him, in that moment, makes Benji so dizzy with the idea of it all that he wants to light every sparkler, everywhere, and spell out Joel's name in stars.

Joel reaches forward and pulls Benji towards him by the back of the head, sealing their mouths together in a warm, solid kiss.

~

Benji's at the airport the next day, feeling significantly less in love with the world.

Seeing as the record label is footing the bill, Benji checks all of his luggage and then heads down to the airport bar to calm his weary nerves before boarding the plane. Two rum and cokes later he waltzes into the bookstore and throws twenty good dollars down on magazines alone - women's magazines, the kind that he peeked through the pages of at in the grocery store but would never admit to reading at all.

In this airport, heading to a city where nobody knows him, Benji sprawls out in the waiting area and leafs through each page.

~

The rest of the morning goes by in a blur.

At LAX, Benji is picked up by an Epic intern who drives a huge black SUV with matte rims that match the detail. She greets him by saying she parked illegally in a loading only zone, so they run through the airport together with Benji’s two pieces of luggage between them, dodging families headed to Disneyland and businessmen on their cellphones.

By the time they get back to the company SUV, Benji is laughing and a little bit out of breath.

“Let’s not tell Chris we did that,” Eliza laughs at him, shaking her head and smiling as she puts the car keys back into the ignition. Benji grins over the center console at her, and then looks back over his shoulder through the rear view window. As he does so, the arrivals doors burst open with paparazzi, their camera lights bright, white, and disorienting.

So far, LA is the weirdest place that Benji has ever been. And he’s barely off the tarmac.

“That was weird. Who was that?” Benji asks, with the majority of his attention still on the group of photographers. Eliza shrugs and pulls out of their makeshift parking spot, so Benji lets it go – it seems like spotting celebrities isn’t as cool as he thinks it is – and asks instead, “So how long have you lived here for?”

She steers with one hand, and reaches into the center console for a pair of thick black sunglasses that she picks up and slides onto her face. After a second, she answers, “Um, let’s see. I moved here from London when I turned eighteen, and I’m twenty five in a month.” 

“London transplant,” Benji smiles, leaning forward to dig around in the bag at his feet for his own pair of sunglasses. They aren’t as fancy as Eliza’s look, he actually just bought these at a Target in New York before he, Joel, and a couple of friends went up to a cabin for a few days last summer. Most of their budget had gone towards booze, not fashion. “I guess that makes coming here from Maryland not seem so bad.”

Eliza smiles, biting her lip against it before she finally cracks, laughs, and then says, “Well, it might not be further away than London, but it’s still Maryland.”

“Hey!” Benji laughs, caught off guard with her teasing as he finds his sunglasses tucked in the side pocket of his bag. He frowns through his smile and sits back in his seat as they drive past the big concrete LAX sign. “Maryland is like, the wealthiest American state.” 

Giggling now, Eliza pulls them out onto the merge ramp, and says, “I definitely don’t believe that.”

“Well, it’s true,” Benji smiles, reaching down to crack his window open a little bit before sliding his own sunglasses onto the bridge of his nose. He glances across the car at his new friend. “I looked it up on Wikipedia.”

~

Eliza drops him off at The Beverly Hills Hotel, which is where the label is putting him up.

“I’ll be back tomorrow at eight,” She tells him, leaning across the front seat. “Be ready.”

He nods and gives her the captain’s salute before closing the door with the palm of his hand pressed against the frame. As she pulls away from the curb he turns around, sliding his sunglasses from his nose to the top of his head as he takes in the hotel building, painted pink and covered with manicured rows of vine.

“Jeez,” He whispers at nobody in particular, bending down to pick his bags up.

As he starts forward, down the yellow brick road and between two palm trees that match perfectly in size, Benji can’t help but let his mind wander.

What if his life could be like this forever?


	5. Team Spirit!

That night, Paul takes Joel out for drinks after work.

“So, Joely, do you think Hollywood’ll change him?” Paul asks, teasing kind of, as he leans back in the rickety wooden chair and sips at his scotch. He looks like a bond villian, if bond villians were ten pounds overweight and primarily wore faded black department store t-shirts.

Frowning, Joel shakes his head, and shrugs as he takes a sip of his own drink.

“No, man. Even if he changes, he’ll still be Benji, you know?” He asks, lifting his shoulder up again, letting it fall as his attention wanders down to the table top. There are a set of initials scratched out in the cheap painted wood: CP+ZQ, surrounded by the dug out and faded outline of a heart.

Paul nods, wrist curling at a strange angle as he sets his drink back down on the table, and reaches for another handful of thick cut fries instead. This bar sells them in bottomless baskets, which means they’ve already finished a bowl and a half.

“How about you? It’s been almost an entire day,” He smiles, popping a fry into his mouth. He chews, swallows, and reaches for his drink again, asking, “Miss him yet?”

Grinning, Joel rolls his eyes at the question, and reaches for his glass.

“Like crazy, man,” He says, still smiling as he brings the glass to his mouth, and looks cross eyed down at the scotch inside. The ice cubes clink around as he tips the glass back enough to take another sip.

Paul laughs and throws his napkin across the table, saying, “Sick, dude.”

~

Joel’s home a few hours later. 

Admittedly he is a little drunk, which he really only realizes when he fumbles his keys in the front door lock, and then has to hold onto the wall with both palms as he toes his shoes off in the foyer.

He does remember to throw the latch on the door, which is important since he’s the last (and only) one in tonight. 

After that he heads to the kitchen still wearing his jacket, which is something that he doesn’t do intentionally - especially as he’s primarily in search of drunk people food. Even though he just ate his body weight in fries at the bar, he rummages through the top cupboards first, and quickly settles on an already opened box of crackers.

It’s not a platter of nachos or a three tier cheeseburger, but it’ll do.

Heading back into the living room, Joel finally shrugs his jacket off and throws it over the back of the couch before he leans down to turn the lamp on. Warm, yellowed light floods through the area, and Joel frowns, looking around for the television remote.

Benji’s got this annoying habit of leaving it in places that piss Joel off - namely right on top of the television, or in between the cracks in the couch cushions. Tonight, Joel finds it on the floor half pushed underneath the couch. It’s a new location, but not totally unexpected.

Yawning, Joel drops down onto the couch, and kicks his feet up onto the coffee table. With his socked toes he moves the half eaten bowl of cereal that Benji haphazardly ate before leaving for the airport this morning to the side, and then does the same to the matching half drunk mug of coffee. 

The coffee is actually his fault - he had really been more concerned with having sex with Benji before his cab arrived. Joel smiles a little at the memory, and turns the TV on.

It’s still on the same channel the morning news is on, which is strange, because usually by the time Joel gets home Benji has changed it over to the late night show channels or cartoons.

Joel opens his box of crackers one handed, and navigates through the on-screen guide with the other. He actually doesn’t even like late night tv that much anyway, and he suspects Benji doesn’t really, either.

After a few moments of vague indecision, he settles on a repeat of The Office, but he keeps cartoon network on the last channel button just in case he needs to back out quickly.

Happy with his decision, he leans back into the couch cushions and closes his eyes, blindly navigating a cracker into his mouth. He was the worst carb fiend when drunk. Benji, on the other hand, was the type to search out more alcohol when drunk. Not Joel. Joel knew when it was time to start soaking up all of the liquor he’d consumed with shitty, starchy food.

Hiccuping, Joel opens his eyes and brings his head back up so he can hear the TV. Something is making a noise. Like a digital beep - like, like the warning sound the fire alarm set off every five seconds when it was low on batteries.

Joel sets his crackers to the side and frowns as he sits up and turns around. What the hell did they own that would make a noise like that?

It takes him a few minutes, but he zeroes in on the flashing red light of their home answering machine not too long after. Groaning, he stretches one arm out like he can somehow get the message to play from across the room, but after a few tries it’s pretty obvious that’s not happening.

Getting to his feet, Joel takes a few crackers for the road and heads towards the answering machine that sat on one of Benji’s many plastic bins of vinyl records. The answering machine was kind of Benji’s thing, too, since he was always the first one home - it was why Joel barely recognized the ‘you have a message’ tone.

Joel crouches down and hits the play button on the answering machine.

“Hey babe, I called you earlier but you were in class. I guess I forgot about the time difference, cause it went straight to voicemail,” Benji’s voice says, flooding through the room like a bucket full of warm suds and water being tipped into the gutter on a sunny day. Joel smiles and eats another cracker, brushing the crumbs off of his chest. “Anyway I miss you, I was just sitting here and a commercial came on.”

There’s a pause before the sound of Benji strumming his guitar, and Joel laughs, coughs crumbs all over his t-shirt, and says, “Oh my god,” to nobody in particular.

“Joel goes better, manly Joely, Joel goes better with Joel, manly Joely-Joel,” Benji sings, laughing a little as he hits the wrong chord on his guitar and then giggles through the last three words. He pauses, then says, “That was Mentos, by the way. I’m running out of jingle options which means I guess I’ll have to start writing my own stuff, soon. I miss you babe, I’ll call you tomorrow.”

Grinning, still, Joel hits the replay button, and listens again.

~

The next morning, Joel is admittedly a little hungover at work.

“What did you do last night?” Hilary asks him, laughing as she opens their class schedule binder with a snap of the rings.

Joel groans, and rolls his sticky forehead against the desktop. Beside his head and between the keyboard and mouse, his fingers are wrapped around the bottom part of a cup of coffee. 

Today, not even the coffee is saving him.

“Benj is in California for work, so Paul took me out for drinks,” He says, frowning still as he pulls his head up off of the desk. He should get some Tylenol before his 3PM class gets here - teaching four year olds how to hip hop dance was generally impossible under perfect circumstances. “Paul is the devil.”

She laughs and awws, coming over to pat the back of his head gently.

“I have a swim class in five minutes, wanna trade?” She asks him, stepping away to jump up onto the counter and sit beside him, swinging her bare legs back and forth in front of her. Joel already feels vaguely sea sick at the motion. “At least if you puke we can just filter it out.”

Grumbling a little, Joel sits back in his chair, and crosses his arms over his chest.

“I already puked,” He says, which just makes her laugh at him even more.

~

He gets a chance to talk to Benji after work that day for the first time since he left.

“It’s weird here,” Benji says, sounding unsure of himself. Joel switches the phone from one ear to the other as he continues stirring his pasta - without Benji here, there’s really no reason to make it before he leaves for work. “Everyone is nice to me.”

That makes Joel laugh as he leans forward to turn the temperature on the stove down.

“I’m pretty sure that’s just because you’re their new golden goose,” Joel says, breaking up a clump of noodles with his wooden spoon. His hangover has mostly faded away, now, he’s just tired with a mega craving for mac and cheese. The real stuff, not the powder mix that came in the box. “Hey, has anyone in the Illuminati asked you to join their cult yet?”

Benji giggles a little despite himself, and says, “That’s Scientology. Actually no wait, I have Beyonce on the other line.”

“I woke up like this,” Joel says out of habit, moving his shoulder a little bit despite the fact nobody is around to see it.

More giggling from Benji as he sips at whatever he’s drinking loudly. Joel smiles.

“This whole life thing is really weird without you, you know,” Benji says after a moment.

Joel smiles and reaches up to grab the strainer off of its hook over the sink.

“Tell me about it, Benj,” He says softly, glancing over at Benji’s empty beer bottle from the other night still sitting at the edge of the sink. So they weren’t great about dishes or recyclables. “Did you record today?”

Benji rips something open - probably his dinner - and says, “All day. It’s pretty crazy, but I guess they’re only giving me two weeks to do it, so. You know. Hustle.”

“Yeah,” Joel nods, tucking the phone back into the crook of his shoulder as he dumps his pasta pot over the strainer, a small percentage tumbling over the edges of the strainer and into the sink instead. “My day was pretty crappy. Paul bought me a bunch of scotch last night so I was hungover at work.”

Cackling, now, Benji stuffs something into his mouth - it’s crunchy as he chews it, so it’s probably chips or something equally un dinner like - and says, “I love Paul.”

“He asked me if he thought Hollywood would change you,” Joel smiles, laughing a bit to himself as he reconsiders the question. Benji, with huge golden Elvis glasses thinking that he’s too good for everyone, everywhere.

Benji’s chewing slows down, and he asks, curious, “What did you say?”

“I dunno. I just told him that even if you changed, you’d still be Benj,” Joel shrugs, shaking the strainer out. As an afterthought, he picks up the few extra noodles that dropped into the sink, and throws them back on top. Nobody is here to judge him, so whatever. “You could come home a total stranger but you’d still be Benj to me. You know?”

There’s a moment of quiet as Benji considers it, munching slowly. His chewing isn’t silent, but the sounds are definitely less audible than before.

“I think so,” He says after a moment. Joel nods and makes an agreeable noise as he dumps his noodles back into the pot so he can start adding his cheese sauce. “We’re gonna be alright, huh?”

Joel picks up the pan of sauce he’d started cooking first, and empties it into the pot of noodles.

“We’ll always be alright, Benj,” He says, sounding sure of himself. “It’s me and you, right?”

Crunching some more, Benji echoes, “Right. You and me forever, babe.”

“Actually, me and you, and the Illuminati,” Joel corrects, stirring his noodles and sauce.

Laughing, Benji makes an ‘ahh’ noise, and says, “And the Illuminati. How could I forget?”


End file.
